President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

The enterprises range in sophistication from amateur ventures mounted by technology geeks to the controversial Channel Seven, a decade-old right-wing pirate network whose nationwide transmissions target Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza.

The pirate broadcasts as well as complaints about their operations are multiplying rapidly.

Critics say that in addition to breaking the law, pirates endanger the public. When a less proficient broadcaster goes on the air, his transmitters are prone to slipping into other frequencies - sometimes interfering with air traffic control and military operations - until police find the transmitter.

"Obviously, it doesn't make a difference what the pirate is. It could be sweet John Denver, "Rocky Mountain High,' or a lesson in Jewish philosophy, but it's still interference," said Sam Lehman-Wilzig, a professor of communications at Bar Ilan University. "It sometimes messes up the control over the flight patterns, which theoretically means you could have a very serious accident."

For decades, the only two stations permitted to operate in Israel were Army Radio and Israel Radio. Within the last five years, regulators have allowed 14 new commercial radio stations, but all must conform to strict codes of conduct.

For example, all legal radio stations must broadcast the public Israel Radio news, rather than independent formats. "There are no political stations permitted in Israel," said Amit Schegter, former legal counsel for Israel's Public Broadcasting Authority. "All stations must follow a kind of fairness doctrine."

Eager audiences&lt;

But the result is that the existing stations fail to represent Israel's mosaic of marginal views, leaving the pirates fertile ground.

"On the one hand, there is a problem of rampant illegalism," said Lehman-Wilzig. "Yet on the other hand, we have to ask why, and the answer is pretty obvious."

The official radio and TV system gives short shrift to the minority groups at the fringes of the political spectrum: the ultra-Orthodox, who represent about 10 percent of the population; or Israeli Arabs, who represent about 18 percent. Both groups provide a ready audience for illegal broadcasters.

Politicians regularly appear on the pirate talk shows, and many of the stations are highly profitable.

"There was a religious station operating in Tel Aviv that was illegal, and the police came and confiscated their equipment," said Yehiel Limor, a professor of mass communications at Tel Aviv University. "So they held a fund-raising evening in the Tel Aviv Sports Arena to fund the purchase of new equipment, and even hired off-duty policemen to take care of security."

The station was soon back on the air, he noted.

"The political institutions protect the political pirate stations, which often represent their point of view," said Schegter. "In effect, this must be the only place in the world where the government has an illegal radio station," he added, referring to the ardently nationalistic Channel Seven.

Sinking the ship&lt;

Supporters of Channel Seven retort that law-and-order proponents were silent when the left-leaning Voice of Peace was the sole pirate station during the 1970s and early 1980s.

The Voice of Peace, owned by longtime peace activist Abie Nathan, broadcast from a ship in the Mediterranean, ostensibly beyond Israel's territorial waters and therefore outside the country's legal purview. The eccentric Nathan finally sank the boat earlier this decade in a dramatic finale to his enterprise.

Still, the station's presence created a powerful precedent for its right-wing successor. Channel Seven, which was launched in the late 1980s, quickly became a cult medium for the religious right.

"When the Voice of Peace was broadcasting, no one asked if it was legal, because it was associated with the left, but when Channel Seven set up its own boat, then we were attacked," said Pinchas Wallerstein, chairman of the council of West Bank settler communities. He is being investigated by the police for an alleged affiliation with the Channel Seven station.

Channel Seven flouts the law openly. For one thing, observers say, many of its interviews with Israeli political figures originate from shore and not from its ship. It also has its own, radically nationalist, news.

During the angry, right-wing demonstrations leading up to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, for instance, Channel Seven interviewed figures who called Rabin a traitor and compared him to a Nazi collaborator, noted Schegter, the former Broadcast Authority lawyer.

Legalizing the pirates&lt;

The government is under increasing pressure from the courts either to close down the stations or to legalize them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Communications Limor Livnat are looking for ways to legalize Channel Seven and a number of other ultra-Orthodox stations that enjoy substantial political backing.

Last week, a government-appointed ministerial committee recommended that new stations be created on the radio dial to accommodate pirates such as Channel Seven.

"I was in the United Stated recently, and I heard stations broadcasting in Spanish, Yiddish and English. Why can't we be the same?" wondered Wallerstein. "I am saying a very simple thing: A station that has listeners should be allowed to operate, as long as it doesn't incite against the state." &lt;